TICKY FULLERTON, PRESENTER: The stock market has continued to shake off the upheaval of the last few weeks.

How long will it last though?

I spoke earlier this evening with Bell Potter's Charlie Aitken.

Charlie Aitken, a big rally to start the week. Do we trust it?

CHARLIE AITKEN, BELL POTTER: Well it's hard to trust anything at the moment, Ticky, with the huge volatility in all markets, but here we are today up another 110 points. The market now 512 points above its low of Tuesday morning.

Good across the board buying by foreigners, it seemed, across the whole day. And look, I'd tend to believe there's a little bit more to this. So, yes.

TICKY FULLERTON: You say good across the board, but who were the notable performers?

CHARLIE AITKEN: Well it was all very big-cap-focused today, Ticky. Like, very heavy flow towards BHP, Rio, the big four banks, AMP, Telstra, QBE. Most of the order flow today was favouring large cap stocks and that's typical of asset allocation. I think there is asset allocation support for Australia because of our high yields and triple A rating and I think that will continue.

TICKY FULLERTON: Yes, and yet one big company didn't fare so well. A stellar profit result from Australia's biggest goldminer Newcrest, but it couldn't please the market.

CHARLIE AITKEN: Oh, the market; you can't please them all of the time. But Newcrest board would be sitting there today saying, "Oh, billion dollar profit, 20 cents special dividend and we went down," but unfortunately the devil was in the detail where the forward guidance for production was downgraded a little bit, costs were upgraded a little bit and also the gold price fell in Asia which saw a bit of profit-taking in Newcrest.

TICKY FULLERTON: And Insurance Australia Group is to buy 20 per cent of a Chinese insurance company. Now, Trade Minister Craig Emerson was talking up how significant this deal is. Is that what the market thought?

CHARLIE AITKEN: No. A $100 million deal is not significant in the relationship between Australia and China. Most people in the market thought this was interesting.

There have been rumours that IAG is a takeover target, with the Commonwealth Bank and Wesfarmers seen as likely suitors, and many in the market actually thought this might have been a slightly defensive move from IAG, albeit they only spent $100 million. So, definitely a different view to the Trade Minister.

TICKY FULLERTON: Now Japan's quarterly GDP figures weren't as bad as feared. How much of an impact did that have on the overall market today?

CHARLIE AITKEN: Well, Ticky, in markets that have been pricing doomsday, this is actually less bad news is actually good news. So, from the moment those Japanese GDP numbers came out, big-cap resource stocks from BHP, Rio, Fortescue and Woodside and through to even smaller ones, all rallied on that, particularly the people who do heavy business with Japan in terms of BHP, Rio and Woodside.